On August 23, 2022 chief petitioner and parent activist Casity Trout submitted the recall paperwork to recall Salem Keizer school board members Karina Guzman-Ortiz, Ashley Carson-Cottingham, and Osvaldo Avila. According to the group Salem-Keizer Education First, "Parents and concerned citizens across the Salem Keizer School District will no longer sit idly by while they witness public education continue putting the futures of their children on the backburner as they indoctrinate young minds and negate to provide them with a rigorous academic experience. The reasons for recall petitions are cited below:

Zone5

Karina Guzman Ortiz does not prioritize academics for students in the Salem Keizer school district, her top priority is board policies with a focus on "accepting and confirming BIPOC and marginalized student voices and increasing culturally responsive school leadership, teaching and curriculum." She believes white supremacy is a structural and systemic issue, and believes white people are privileged and cannot experience racism. She is quoted saying " ... racism operates at the systemic institutional level and we understand that marginalized communities and oppressed communities do not benefit off the structural support and structural benefits or privileges that many white people do." She strongly supports students expressing their gender at school and "in due time they might be able to share that with family members". She has supported putting a ban on expulsion and suspension for students despite the growing number of disciplinary incidents occurring in our schools since the cancelation of School Resource Officers. She has supported spending taxpayer funds on feminine hygiene products in every boy’s bathroom including at the elementary level. Student safety is at risk; she supported the removal of SRO's when data included 170+ interactions involving weapons. She voted to ban concealed carry while on district grounds.

Zone 3

Former Board chair, Osvaldo Avila, labels parents whose values differ from his own with divisive rhetoric and slander to dismiss their concerns; even referring to them as "book burners," while supporting books that illustrate with pictures, in detail, teen's giving oral sex and having intercourse. He's supported special interest groups who use hate speech to intimidate parents; calling them "white supremacists," "racists," and "transphobic." Avila has given preferred treatment to these groups with early entry to board meetings, permitting them to hide their identity when giving public comment, and allowing them to harass parents through physical posturing, name calling and threatening behavior. These same groups have harassed board members with opposing views at their homes and places of work to intimidate them. Avila's bias against parents was further illustrated when he stated "the primary onus is the educators, are the ones responsible for the education" Indicating parents' rights are less than educators. Student safety is at risk; he supported the discontinuation of student safety data collection that previously included reports of over 11,000 disciplinary incidents students were involved in. He supported the removal of SRO's when data included 170+ interactions involving weapons. He voted to ban lawful background checked concealed carry.

Zone 1

Ashley Carson-Cottingham does not prioritize student academics and education according to her strategic goals for 2022/2023. In outlining HER goals, she stated "I'm really interested in school-based health centers (SBHC)". SBHC will allow minors to seek medical care, to include for conditions as serious as HIV, without parental consent or knowledge per ORS 109.640. Her chosen priority ignores the fact that less than half of all third graders are not meeting reading proficiency goals. She has not maintained order in the boardroom as outlined in Board Chairs Role policy, allowing for hate speech, intimidation and race-baiting from special interest groups who contributed to her campaign. This creates safety concerns for attendees. Parents feel intimidated, as though they have no participation rights in the education of their student while having forced differing ideologies taught to their children. Years of research have highlighted the importance of parent involvement in student success. Ashley is in support of graphic books in the district libraries that portray teenagers giving and receiving oral sex and having intercourse. She voted to ban concealed carry-on district grounds, is against renewing the SRO contract, and is in favor of the transgender policies that were created without parent input.

According to Salem-Keizer Education First, "Several groups in the Salem Keizer School District community make up several thousand individuals who demand that the classrooms are a neutral, safe, welcoming and inclusive place for all students." Chief petitioner, Casity Troutt commented on the book Gender Queer, stating that “the objection and outrage over the inappropriate and pornographic materials is not at all an attack on LGTBQIA+ students or the BIPOC students. Parents would equally object to any book as graphic and sexually explicit if it were about a heterosexual person. There is no objection to teaching about the horrors of racism, it must be done so we can continue to grow and move on from such an ugly part of history but only with telling the truth and not in glorifying an institution that seeks to breed division. We want all students to be welcomed, safe, happy, healthy and to receive an excellent education so they can have a promising future”.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

"Schools should be free from the political or personal agendas of the adults and are conducive to thinking and learning critically. They demand that students are once again taught the fundamentals like reading, writing, math, history and science. Parents are saying no to indoctrination and that they have every right to have a decision in what their child is being exposed to in schools because parenting doesn't end when the bell rings," according to the group Salem-Keizer Education First.


--Staff Reports

Post Date: 2022-09-02 06:54:47

Last Update: 2022-09-02 16:28:37